Evergreen Speedway is probably my favorite track in the Formula D schedule, so I was looking forward to heading out to round 5. Evergreen demands the fastest speeds, in drift, of any other track I’ve ever driven on, so every run is exciting and challenging. Since my car will be staying out west for the remainder of the season, extra preparation was necessary in terms of maintenance and packing spares. In addition to the maintenance, I adjusted the alignment and suspension to what we ended up with last year at Seattle. Other than that and repairs to the rear crash bar, there were no changes to the car after round 4.

After arriving to the track on Thursday, we cleaned up the car and unpacked in preparation for the 4-hour paid practice session. The plan in practice was to get comfortable with the track again for qualifying the next day but keep the car clean and free of damage. The practice session was a bit frustrating. At first, I couldn’t find a good reference point for coming off the bank. It’s hard to see the outer course line in the power alley while speeding through the bank, so it’s difficult to know when to back off the throttle.

After several runs, I had a good feel where to come off, but since the practice was held in the evening, the sun was starting to come down and obstructing my view. There’s basically about a second of blindness coming into the power alley where the sun is in your eyes, so I was just guessing at where the outer course line was located until I was out of the sun and able to see it. It didn’t help that the starter was sending cars rapidly, which was keeping a lot of smoke on the track and making it dangerous with cars spinning out and stopping on the track. I got through practice and had a clear idea of what I needed to improve for Friday to get a good qualifying run.

On Friday, I had a great practice session, worked my way up high on the bank wall, and really nailed the course on my last two runs. With the sun directly overhead and extra banners/course markers added at the end of the bank, it was much easier to find reference points to use. I was feeling confident for qualifying. In my first qualifying run, I initiated into the bank and everything felt good, but as I started to come off the bank, it felt like the track had lost a lot of grip. My car washed out wider than normal, and I was just trying to hold on to it and not hit the wall. I managed to keep it together, but I dropped my left rear tire over the off-course line, which was a big deduction. The rest of the run was decent, and I scored a 76.5.

At the end of the first round of qualifying, I was sitting in 17th place, just barely missing the cutoff to lock myself into the first 16 spots. Therefore, I would need to make a second run. On the next run, I tried to do the same thing but backed off a little early coming off the bank to avoid going wide like my first run. It wasn’t an amazing run but was clean with no mistakes. I scored 83, which placed me in 22nd position after everyone had finished their second runs. I would be going against Chris Forsberg in Top 32.

After watching videos of some of my runs and thinking about the behavior of the car, I was questioning whether the differential was locking properly. It just seemed like it was going to rev limiter a bit too easy and overall just didn’t feel stable on the bank. We jacked the car up and tried to spin the rear wheels in opposite directions. While there was some resistance, it felt like it was way easier than it should be, although we had no way to tell how it was actually locking under torque. We decided to stick with it unless it got worse and try to make the car feel more natural on the bank with suspension adjustments.

Since we would be battling one of the fastest cars, the plan was just to add as much grip to the car as I could stand without straightening on the bank. Throughout Friday night practice and Saturday Top 32 practice, we continuously made changes to make the car faster. We adjusted the camber, toe, tire pressures, and ended up removing the rear sway bar. The car was pretty difficult to drive on the bank at this point because it was right on the edge of straightening, but we had to do that to have a chance at keeping up with Forsberg.

In the top 32 battle, I was following first. Forsberg rolled off the line, and I tried to time my acceleration to be able to keep up with him when he went full throttle. We got to full throttle at about the same time, but of course, he made a car length gap toward the end of the straight as we initiated due to the power difference. I tried to initiate as late as possible to keep the gap to a minimum. I followed him relatively well and maintained the gap with no mistakes except for a bit of a correction around the last clipping point.

The second run was pretty straightforward. I just did my best, entered as fast as possible, had a slight correction on entry but didn’t straighten, tapped the wall coming off the bank, and completed the run. It was probably one of my better lead runs of the weekend, so I was happy with that. However, Forsberg was able to follow pretty well, so he got the win.

Overall, it was a good weekend. I drove well, and I was happy with the team being able to adjust the car to get it near its limit. I’m looking forward to Texas as it’s a flat track, and low power should not be as big of a handicap.

As always, it was nice to go back to Wall Stadium this year since it’s the closest track to where I live. It’s not my favorite track layout on the FD circuit, but it does provide a welcome break from the expense of traveling, and it’s nice to only be an hour away from my shop if anything needs to be fixed on the car. The course layout at wall was changed this year in the infield, which cut out the crossover in the middle of the track. While there was a lot of discussion on the change and everyone had their opinion on it, I honestly didn’t think it was a big deal. The bank and transition from the bank to the flat part of the track is the most difficult aspect at Wall Stadium. Whatever the course is on the infield doesn’t matter so much to me.

While I qualified in Top 32 last year and put up a decent fight against JR in tandem, I felt like I really struggled on this track last year because I couldn’t drift high on the bank. Since I started out driving on flat tracks and never really had much experience on big banked turns, it’s always been a weak point for me. And the bank at Wall is probably one of the steepest and sharpest banks that you’ll find, so it really exaggerates that weak point. I felt that with a year of learning under my belt, I should be able to come to Wall this time and drive the course properly. Unfortunately, on Thursday practice, I realized that I was still struggling with driving the bank. I was taking a mid-line on the bank the whole day, and while I was solid on the rest of the course, I really needed to be able to drive all the way up to the wall on the first turn.

I was disappointed after Thursday practice and knew I would have to improve significantly for Friday if I wanted to qualify solidly in Top 32 and have a shot at winning in tandem. I reviewed a lot of my video footage and video of other drivers to see what I was doing wrong. I figured out the proper reference points I should use when entering the bank and for knowing when to get back on throttle. In Friday morning practice, as soon as I tried using these new reference points, I immediately started to ride the bank wall properly. I was really excited that I corrected my mistakes, and I did about 10 laps in a row in practice where I was high on the bank.

Having figured out the proper way to drive the track, I was feeling confident for qualifying. In my first run, I initiated into the bank and was on a good line near the wall. However, I got a bit too greedy and tried to get as close to the wall as possible coming off the bank. Unfortunately, I tapped the wall, which straightened the car for a second and also cause me to hit the inner clipping point coming off the bank. I was pretty sure that would give me a zero score, but I completed the run just in case. The judges did, in fact, give a zero score for my first run, so I would have to rely on my second run to make it into Top 32.

On my second run, I drove much more cautiously to make sure I wouldn’t get another zero. It wasn’t a super exciting run, but I was on the correct line and did mostly everything the judges were asking. I ended up qualifying in 25th place, and I would be going against Conrad Grunewald in Top 32 tandem.

I knew Grunewald would be a challenge because he was one of the fastest cars I had seen in practice, and he makes a ton of smoke. Due to the location of the transitions on this track, it can be very difficult to see when you’re following a car that makes a lot of smoke. In addition to that, Grunewald had won this event a couple of years ago, so he definitely had a lot of confidence and knowledge of the track.

In Friday night practice and Saturday Top 32 practice, we just worked on adding grip to the car so that we could keep up with Grunewald. The tough thing about the Wall track and many banked tracks with a lower power car is that you have a lot of grip on the bank, which forces you to set up the car loose so you don’t understeer. However, when you drop onto the flat section, the car is super slow because you’ve set it up to be loose for the bank. So the challenge is to find a balance, basically make it have as much grip as possible but still loose enough not to straighten out on the bank.

We went through many iterations of suspension and alignment changes to add grip to the car, but I felt like we could still add more by the time practice was over. We didn’t want to take a big risk and change the car with no practice time, so we made a few more small changes and hoped it would be fast enough to keep up with Grunewald.

In Top 32 tandem, I followed Conrad first. He rolled off the line slow and accelerated hard about halfway down the straight. I appreciated that he didn’t drag race me to the first corner, but his approach was actually hurting me because I needed to get more speed initiating into the bank. So my entry into the bank wasn’t the best, but I managed to stay within a car length behind him. My car still didn’t have quite enough grip to keep up, so while I was able to stay relatively close to him throughout the run, I had to drive with less angle to keep up.

On my lead run, I just did my normal qualifying style run, which ended up being pretty good. I think Grunewald was expecting me to be slower, so he gave me a bit too much gap on initiation and didn’t quite catch up to me as soon as he should have. As a result, the judges called a one-more-time. We didn’t change tires but just lowered pressures a bit for more grip.

My next follow run was about the same. It was tough to initiate behind Grunewald because he would launch slow and then speed up, whereas I needed to be full throttle all the way to the first turn to have enough speed to get high on the wall. The rest of the run was about the same as the first. I still wasn’t fast enough and had to drive with less angle to stay in proximity. My lead run was fairly good, but this time Conrad knew what to expect and he did a much better job following me. He got the win.

While it was a tough loss to take, I really felt like I made progress with my driving from last year to this year. I’m really looking forward to coming back to wall next year with the new knowledge and experience at this track.

PBIR was a great track for me last year, so I was excited to go down to Florida and see if I can have another good performance. There was a lot of work done to the car in the few weeks between rounds two and three in order to get the rear of the car repaired after the crash in Atlanta. Luckily, we were able to get the car back together and all the maintenance done with plenty of time to spare. The Palm Beach track was modified this year by extending the main outer clipping zone on the left-hand turn to go completely around the outer edge of the track. This made it a bit more challenging to drive since you have to carry more speed into the outer zone, but it wasn’t a huge difference from the previous year. Another change to the track was that the initiation point was moved earlier on the straight, which made it more difficult for low-power cars, like mine, to get up to proper speed to stay wide on the first turn.

My first few laps in Thursday practice were a bit shaky getting used to the new layout, but I soon figured it out and started working on refining my line to the judges’ guidelines. As usual, on Friday there was one short practice session before qualifying. I was driving really well in this session and putting the car right on the main outer clipping zone. My spotter was telling me that my runs are perfect and to just work on getting more angle and smoke, if possible. We felt that we could qualify in the top 5 if I could pull off another run like what I was doing toward the end of the practice session.

In my first qualifying run, I was a bit too careful going into the main left corner outer clipping zone. I didn’t carry quite enough speed and ended up leaving the outer clipping zone too early. While it was still a good run, scoring 76.3, it wasn’t nearly as good as how I was driving in practice. It was a bit diappointing, but at the same time, I was relieved to be locked into the top 16 in the first round of qualifying.

With qualifying completed, I learned that I would be going against Forrest Wang again in Top 32, same as Atlanta. In Friday night practice, I started working on my follow runs, but unfortunately it began to rain midway through practice. Parts of the track were wet, and parts were dry, making for dangerous conditions on a high speed track. To avoid any damage, we decided to park the car early.

In Saturday Top 32 practice, I continued to focus on my follow runs, but I didn’t get to run with Forrest at all in practice. I knew how fast he was on the straight from having battled him in Atlanta, so that wasn’t too much of a concern. And my spotter was giving me good information on how he was doing on the rest of the track.

During the Top 32 battle, I led first and did a solid read run with no mistakes. I was told that Forrest had a decent follow but wasn’t too close to me. My spotter was warning me that Forrest slows more than other people in the middle of the main outer zone. So on my chase run, I tried to follow him to the best of my ability but gave him a bit of room in the outer zone so as not to get bogged down behind him. After a long wait, the judges decided on a one-more-time.

We didn’t change tires but decided to drop pressures a bit so I can close the gap on Forrest more easily. Once again, my lead run was solid and Forrest did a slightly better job chasing than the first set of runs. I didn’t want to do a run that was “good enough” and leave it up to the judges to decide the winner. On my follow run, I decided to risk it and try to get as close to Forrest as possible to make it clear that I should get the win. We initiated with a bit of a gap, and as we transitioned into the main left-hand corner, I closed the gap completely and was right on his door. Unfortunately, he was going a little slower than I expected through that corner, and I couldn’t keep the car from bogging in fourth gear. The car gripped up and caused me to straighten for a second. Forrest got the win due to that mistake.

Even though we went out in the top 32, I’m happy with the team’s performance and my driving. It was the best I have qualified this year, and I was the closest I have been to advancing on to top 16.

After a decent start to the season, qualifying for Top 32 in my first visit to Long Beach, I was looking forward to going to Atlanta. I drove in Atlanta in 2012, so it was nice returning to a track where I’ve competed before. Unfortunately, things didn’t get off to a good start on Thursday. My car arrived to the track just as practice was starting, and we were in a hurry to get everything unloaded and prepare the car to go out on track because I wanted to get as much practice as possible. I finally made it on track about 20 minutes into the session. I guess I wasn’t in the right mindset to drive after rushing to get stuff ready. On my first lap, I was following and decided it was a good idea to drive through a bunch of smoke on the last turn of the track. I ended up going too wide and into the grass tapping the wall on the exit. It wasn’t that hard of a hit, and I kept the front of the car out of the wall, but the rear got pretty bent up. Since it was all cosmetic and didn’t damage any suspension parts, I just kept driving.

I got better throughout the practice session and was feeling relatively comfortable. I was just working on getting a more aggressive flick into the first turn, getting closer on the outside clipping zones at the top of the hill, and trying to make some more smoke.

On Friday, there was another practice session before qualifying. I tried to run the first two practice laps as if they were mock qualifying runs, but they turned out shaky. I was running well by the end of practice but wasn’t feeling too confident on throwing down a perfect run right off the bat.

Qualifying came around. We raised the tire pressures a bit since the track seemed grippier as the sun went down. The first run was looking pretty good, but I was struggling to stay sideways in some spots since the track had even more grip than I anticipated. As I was coming out of the horseshoe, I shifted up to fourth gear. Unfortunately, lifting off the throttle to make the shift caused me to straighten for a second, which gave me a zero score for the first run. The second run was pretty similar to the first except I made the upshift clean and completed the course. I got a 72.4 for the second run, which put me in 21st place.

I would be going against Forrest Wang in top 32. In Friday night top 32 practice, I was noticing it was getting harder to disengage the clutch. I had installed a new master cylinder before this event, and it seemed like it wasn’t bled completely. I drove through it since it was a short practice and managed to put down a few decent runs.

On Saturday morning, we bled the clutch, and it was feeling a lot better. In top 32 practice, my crew helped me line up with Forrest on the grid so I could practice following him. Forrest was running consistent and pretty quick. I rolled off the line at the same time as him in practice, and he got 1-2 car lengths on me by the initiation point, so I knew I would have to jump the start in top 32 to keep up. Due to a lot of breakdowns and track sweeping, I only got a few runs in that practice session, so it wasn’t too helpful.

In top 32, Forrest and I were waiting on grid for our turn to run, and about one battle before ours, it started drizzling. By the time we were on the line to run, my windshield was covered with drops, but it didn’t seem like it would be wet enough to affect grip significantly. I would be following first, so I jumped the light a split second before Forrest left. Things got weird, and he hadn’t passed me halfway down the straight, so I had to breathe the throttle a bit to let him go by. He initiated a bit too late and ended up going way wide on the first inner clip and almost going off track. I initiated normally and was on the clip properly, but I had to wait for him to get going because he slowed down significantly to keep from going off track. By the time he got going again, I was going way too slow and couldn’t light up the tires in fourth gear to make it up the hill. I had to straighten and re-initiate.

I thought I would have a big advantage at this point since Forrest made a significant mistake and caused me to straighten. When we lined up for the second run, Forrest gave me a hand signal that he washed out wide, so I was feeling even more confident that it was an obvious mistake, and I should have the advantage. My lead run was normal, nothing exciting but no mistakes. From what I was told, Forrest was a little way back most of the run except closing in at the horseshoe.

I thought I should have the win, or at least a one more time since I didn’t know how Forrest did following me. We waited for what seemed like five minutes to get the decision, and they gave Forrest the win.

We protested the decision and went to talk to the judges. Basically, they were saying that Forrest was good on the first clip and washed out a little wide, so it wasn’t that big of a mistake, and I should have been able to follow. After watching the replay, we confirmed that Forrest was actually way off the clip. But they said there was enough gap between us that I should have been able to adjust and not lose drift. After going back and forth with the judges and Ryan for about 20 minutes, it was clear that the arguing was pointless. So we packed up and watched the rest of the show. I’m happy with the progress we have made from last year. I was able to qualify solidly in the top 32 this time and put up a good fight in tandem competition.

I was pretty excited to start the 2013 season and especially to go to Long Beach for the first time since I missed this round in 2012. Unfortunately, there’s no Thursday practice at Long Beach, and I wouldn’t be allowed to drive at Media Day, so it was somewhat stressful having to learn the course in 1.5 hours of practice and qualify for top 32 on the same day. I flew in on Tuesday night to get the car through tech early and make sure there was time to fix any issues. The car didn’t get to the track until Wednesday night, so Wednesday was spent relaxing and checking out the track. The car went through tech inspection on Thursday morning without any issues, so we were set to go for Friday practice and qualifying.

In my first lap on the track, I was surprised how much grip it had for a parking lot. I went a lot faster on my next few laps and started getting the rhythm of the course. I guess with everyone always talking about the walls and how scary the track is, I was kind of nervous about it, but it turned out to be a lot more straightforward than what I expected. The tough part was just having the right line and speed under the bridge to make it out to the main outer zone in front of the judges without any corrections or e-braking. There’s also a temptation to transition too early under the bridge, which messes up your line, so I worked on forcing myself to transition late. I kept it conservative in practice so I wouldn’t damage the car. I had no spare parts due to some shipping complications so I was focused on staying off the walls.

At the end of practice, I was feeling pretty good about qualifying. The car’s grip/power/gearing was matched well for the track also, so I could floor it all the way from the first turn to the bridge, then lift for a second, then full throttle all the way to the hairpin, which was helping make some smoke and keep the speed up. It’s kind of fun when you’re at full throttle and all you have to worry about is steering! From my experience last year, I learned that I need to just run 100% in both qualifying runs and hope one of them is good enough. There’s no point in trying a conservative run.

Waiting for my first run, I could see that Dennis Mertzanis just hit the tire wall in the run before mine, and maybe that got in my head a little, wondering if there was possibly something on the track. I ended up taking it a bit too easy into the first turn and didn’t make it out to the first wall, which probably hurt my score a lot. I concentrated on transitioning late under the bridge but actually did it too late. I had half the car outside of the groove but got on throttle and just barely missed the tire wall filling up the outer zone in front of the judges pretty well. I finished out the rest of the course with no problems. The crowd was into it because it looked like I was going to wreck, but it wasn’t what the judges were looking for, so I scored a 63.8.

At the end of everyone’s first run, I think I was sitting around 20th, so I would have to make another run. On the second run, I just flicked it too hard under the bridge and basically stopped, trying not to spin. I tried to keep it going but couldn’t get the motor revved up fast enough to make it look fluid so pretty much straightened out in the middle of the course. Somehow, I scored slightly higher on that run with a 65, or at least that’s what I was told. At the end of the session, that put me in 28th. I would be going against Kenny Moen in top 32.

That night, I got more comfortable with the track in the top 32 practice. Unfortunately, Moen had an issue with his car, so I didn’t get to practice with him, and I had no idea how fast he was. The practice went alright but seemed like everyone I followed was either ridiculously fast or so slow that I couldn’t follow them. There was a huge variance in speeds, and I didn’t get any decent follow runs.

The next morning, there was another top 32 practice. It was overcast and was drizzling slightly. I had much less grip than the previous day, and we went down on air pressures a decent amount to get some grip back. I still didn’t get a chance to practice with Moen, so we were basically left to guess how much grip to put in the car. We left it at a medium level, hopefully fast enough to keep up but also loose enough not to straighten everywhere in case Moen was slower than I expected.

I warmed up my tires for the top 32 run and noticed some brake fluid on the floor of the car leaking from the clutch master. So I was hoping we could hurry up a bit! We lined up at the light, and I left the line just a bit ahead of Moen. It was looking good halfway down the straight until we got into the next gear and he pulled about a car-length lead on me. At that point, I was just trying to catch up, but the car didn’t have enough grip to gain any ground, so he had a big lead on me the whole time. On my lead run, I knew I wouldn’t get a gap on him so I went slow and used more angle than usual to see if I could cause him to make a mistake. He almost straightened but managed to hold it together, and the judges gave him the win.

Overall, the weekend wasn’t too bad. I was somewhat worried that I would be pretty rusty driving because I haven’t driven the car in about 6 months, but it all came back, and I had a blast!

After the long break following the previous round at Vegas, it was finally time for the last round at Irwindale. As usual, Kareem and I flew in on Wednesday night, and we headed to the track early Thursday to get the car ready. Following an oil change and a quick alignment, I got on track right on time at 10am for practice. The course was modified slightly from the previous year such that it was necessary to ride the wall on the inner bank a little longer. Also, the infield section was tightened up as compared to last year, but it was basically the same layout that has been used for the last several years.

I had driven at Irwindale in ProAm events in 2009 and 2010, so I was comfortable with the track, although my car has 100hp more than it did back then. After one lap to feel the car out, I started clutch kicking into the bank and working on staying up against the wall. I drove safe into the inner bank to avoid damaging the car early on and just tried to find some good reference points to know how long to stay on the wall. At the end of Thursday practice, I was feeling comfortable with the big bank and ready to start attacking the inner bank.

On Friday morning, we made some alignment changes to make it easier to hold the car on the walls. As usual, I went out early for the one-hour practice before qualifying to try to get as many runs as possible. I started holding throttle longer and transitioning later to get high on the inner bank wall. Although I wasn’t consistently nailing the course, I had a few good runs towards the end of practice.

We were thinking that the track would gain grip later in the day for qualifying so we went up on air pressure to compensate. The strategy for qualifying was just to give 100% on both runs, and hopefully at least one would yield a high score. I took off for my first qualifying run, and I could feel that the car had a lot more grip compared to practice. I was able to floor it down the straight in second gear with no tire spin, unlike practice where I had to wait until third gear to go full throttle. I clutch kicked it hard into the bank and rode the wall relatively high with good angle. I went too wide on the start/finish clipping point, but I transitioned well into the inner bank and managed to drive the car right up to the wall towards the end of the outer zone. The run looked decent up to this point.

Throughout practice I was keeping the car in fourth gear all the way around the track to increase the tire speed/smoke towards the end and avoid mis-shifting. That was fine during the day when the track was slippery, but there was more grip in qualifying. So when I got on the throttle to pull away from the inner bank wall, it didn’t spin the tires like before. I tried to give it a clutch kick, but it wasn’t enough. I gripped up and ran over the second inner clipping point. At that point, I was just struggling to keep the tires spinning in fourth gear and ended up losing focus and spinning out on the last turn.

So with a zero on the first run, it would come down to the second run to try to make it in the show. On the second run, when I took off down the straight, the car was spinning tires in second and third gear, which made me drive a little more cautiously feeling that there was less grip. Unfortunately, I just wasn’t aggressive enough on this run, and once again, the car had more grip than what I was prepared for. I was too low on the banks and again struggled to light up the tires at the end of the course. With a score of 47, that wasn’t going to be enough to make it in to the top 32.

It was a disappointing way to end the season, but at least the car is still in one piece, and I can build on it for next season. I would have liked to have had some stronger performances this year, but I think I drove decent considering I was working with only one crew member the whole year, had no spotter, and couldn’t afford to damage the car. I know where I need to improve, so hopefully I can be more competitive next year.

After Seattle, we stored the car in Las Vegas until Round 6. I flew out to Vegas on Wednesday and relaxed the rest of the day trying to stay up late to get acclimated to the time difference and the nighttime schedule for this event. We got to the track Thursday afternoon and did a few laps through the course in the rental car to get an idea of the new layout.

Practice was scheduled for 9pm – 1am, so we had some time to get organized and get the car ready to go. We changed the oil and went over the whole car to make sure nothing was damaged at Seattle. Then we aligned it to change the setup for the flat Vegas track.

We decided to use 245-wide tires instead of 255s for the Thursday practice to keep the car loose and make it easy to learn the course. I went out to grid early, as usual, to make sure I could get as many runs as possible. I only managed to get a couple of safe runs through the course before Odi had a big crash, which delayed practice for about two hours. That basically cut our 4-hour practice in half, so I only got a handful of runs after the crash had been cleaned up.

I had some decent runs during the practice session, but I wasn’t feeling comfortable with the track. I couldn’t get all the way out to the two outer clipping zones along the walls, which was the main focus of the course. The car was also too loose even though we were continuously adding grip throughout the practice, so I didn’t feel confident throwing it out to the wall.

After practice, we packed everything up and grabbed a very late dinner. I think it was about 5am when we finally went to sleep.

When I woke up on Friday, I took some time to watch the in-car videos we got from Thursday practice. I realized I was transitioning way too early after the initiation, which made it impossible to put the car close to the wall. I was also getting off throttle too early going towards the outer zones, which was killing my speed and not letting me reach the second outer clipping zone. So now I knew what I had to work on that day to get a good qualifying run.

We made sure to get to the track early enough to watch Pro-Am practice so I could see what lines the best drivers were taking. We had a one-hour practice at 7pm before qualifying. Before practice, we added more grip to the car and switched to 255-wide tires to make it feel more planted throughout the course. That was the right choice, and I instantly felt more comfortable on the track during the practice session. The plan was to progressively push harder throughout the practice and stay on throttle longer to be able to get to the outer zones. I felt the last two runs I had in practice were pretty good, and I knew I could qualify well if I pushed it a little harder in qualifying.

My first qualifying run was solid, but I lifted off the throttle too early coming to the wall, so I ended up far from the second outer clipping zone. I scored a 66. I couldn’t rely on that to get in top 32, so I had to step it up for the second run. I basically wanted to do the same as the first run but just stay on throttle a bit longer to get out to the wall. Unfortunately, I lifted off throttle too soon again and couldn’t drive all the way to the wall. My second run score was a 67.5, which wasn’t enough to make it into top 32.

I was disappointed that my weekend was done because I felt like I could have nailed this course if I just had a few more practice runs to dial in my driving. But the car is still in one piece, and I learned a lot, as always. Now it’s time to get ready for the final round at Irwindale.

Between Wall and Seattle, I did a lot of work to the car in preparation for the west coast Formula D events. The car is staying out west for the remainder of the season, so I made sure to take care of all the maintenance, fluids, and tie up any loose ends. I wanted to have it basically like new so I wouldn’t have to do anything to it at the next three tracks besides basic maintenance and setup adjustments.

I made a lot of minor changes to hopefully make the car easier to drive on the banked Evergreen track and make it feel more comfortable at higher angle. I reduced the toe in on the rear, stiffened the rear bar, and adjusted the dampers to reduce the rear grip. I also reduced the caster in the front to get more angle and increased the camber.

We got to the track on Thursday and got a chance to drive through the course a couple of times in the rental car before practice started. Of course, I had heard that the bank is super long at Evergreen. I wasn’t disappointed. It seemed ridiculous driving through with the rental. The angle of banking was pretty low though, so I was confident I would have enough power to do it.

After the first few practice runs, I got up to speed on the bank but was struggling staying off the rev limiter in 4th gear. 5th gear drops the RPM too much, so it wasn’t an option. During the first tire change, I raised the rev limiter 400 RPM. I still set it below the stock limiter so it would be safe. A 3.7 or 3.9 gear would have been a better solution, but my spare diff had the same 4.08 ratio that was in the car. The extra RPM helped a lot, and I started improving my runs as the practice went along.

The diffiult part of this track was coming off the bank and into the “power alley.” It was hard to do it smoothly because the judges wanted you to stay on the wall all the way to the edge of the course in the power alley. Many drivers were carrying too much speed off the bank and sliding wide off course or having to slow down abruptly to keep from going off. It was also near impossible to fill the whole outer zone on the bank and the entire outer zone on the wall in the power alley. A sacrifice had to be made somewhere, either coming off the bank early or going into the outer zone in the power alley later.

I tried coming off the bank several different ways including slowing down a little early to prevent sliding off course. Unfortunately, Chelsea followed me really closely on one of the runs where I let off early. He hit me in the right rear, and we both spun out into the wall towards the end of Thursday practice. It wasn’t too bad of an impact. The rear tube structure got slightly mangled, and my right side wheels made minor contact with the wall. I made my way back to the pits, checked for any bent suspension arms, and checked the alignment. The rear had a bit more toe in, and the steering wheel was slightly off center, but the front toe was the same as I had set it originally.

There was only about 20 minutes left in practice, and I wanted to get at least one more run to make sure nothing serious was wrong with the car, so we left the alignment as it was, and I got back in line for practice. The car drove mostly the same, so with the practice over, Kareem spent some time bending the tubing back in shape and reinstalling taillights and body panels. Then we called it a day. Here is one of my practice runs.

Our plan was to get to the track early on Friday and reset the alignment before practice and qualifying. Unfortunately, it rained right up until our practice session, and working in the mud and puddles didn’t interest me, so I decided against it. Haha. The car felt good in practice although I was still struggling coming off the bank with perfect timing. The judges extended the course outward which made it a bit easier to keep from going off course, but it was difficult to see the yellow line, and I still went off several times or came up short, leaving the outer clipping zone too early.

For my first qualifying run, I came off the bank way too soon and tapped one of the inner clips later in the course. I scored a 68. My second run was much better. I still came off the bank a little early, but the rest of the run was decent. I improved my score, and got a 69. I qualified 32nd and would be going against JR in top 32.

Here are my two qualifying runs from driftstream. I apologize for the poor quality.

On Friday night, we had another hour of practice. I started to get more comfortable with the track and found some good reference points to use coming off the bank thanks to advice from other drivers. We were adding more grip to the car after every run.

On Saturday morning, I wanted to find the most grip we could add before the car got too difficult to drive on the bank, so we softened the rear sway bar before the final practice session. The car was a lot faster but it was difficult to keep it high on the bank, so we went back to the original setting during that practice. My battle with JR was the first run in top 32. He led first, and I got a small jump on him off the line to stay close. He got about a car-length gap on me going into the bank, but he stretched the lead after we initiated. I drove a shallow line through the rest of the course and closed the gap, but I had a big disadvantage after the first run. On my lead run, I was pretty relaxed and did one of my best runs of the weekend. My line was good, and I didn’t make any mistakes besides a small wobble on the bank. But JR was right on me the whole way so he got the win.

Overall, I’m happy that I got to drive at Evergreen and managed to go the whole weekend without killing myself. I learned a lot, and we got to try out many different adjustments, which should be useful for Irwindale. I really need to work on my qualifying though. As much as I enjoy going against JR, it just hasn’t been working out well for me the last two events. lol. I’m looking forward to Vegas next month and getting back on a flat track.

I apologize for the late update. I was busy getting the car ready for the west coast swing of Formula D, so I didn’t have a chance to sit down and write this up until now. Here goes!

Even though Wall Speedway is only an hour away from where I live, I’ve never had the opportunity to drive there. So I was excited to get on the track for Formula D Round 4, but I also didn’t know what to expect. I left the setup mostly the same as the last round in Florida to have a comfortable starting point. In Thursday practice, the first thing I noticed was the track was a lot slower than I expected. I tried to do the first two runs in fourth gear, which is what I use for most tracks but didn’t have enough power for that. Third gear worked a lot better, but I was high in the RPM range and had to be careful with the throttle not to be on the rev limiter too much. It would have been nice to have a 4.3 or 3.7 gear to swap in for this track.

The track was simple for the most part. The difficult part was obviously running the high line on the bank. I didn’t push myself too hard in Thursday practice to get high on the wall because I only had a handful of runs and wasn’t yet comfortable with the bank. The course itself is pretty long, and Formula D was waiting for the smoke to clear between runs, so most of practice was spent waiting in line instead of drifting.

On Friday, we had another 1.5 hours of practice before qualifying. This time, I tried to get higher on the bank to prepare for qualifying, but I was struggling with it. The car had a bit too much grip on the bank, but it was super slippery on the flat section, so I was hesitant to loosen it up any more. I was also entering a little too early and waiting too long to get back on throttle. I just didn’t have enough practice to get used to throwing the car high on the bank, and I couldn’t get my right foot to get on the throttle early enough. I had a couple of solid runs, but the majority were too low on the bank.

In qualifying, luckily, I didn’t have to go first like the last two events, but I made mistakes in my first run. I was too low on the bank and wasn’t focused coming off the bank on the flat. I started transitioning too early coming off the bank and consequently straightened out for a second when I hit the flat section. Overall, it was a pretty bad run, and I think I scored around 45. As qualifying went on it started raining lightly, so my second run would have to be in the wet. I couldn’t nail the bank in the dry, so I wasn’t feeling too confident about trying it in the wet! Haha. I knew my first run would not be good enough for top 32, so I had to do something on my second run. I tried to get a feel for how slippery it was accelerating to the bank. It felt like no grip at all, but when I threw it into the bank, it had way more grip than I thought, so I ended up running the bank low again. The rest of the run was shaky, but I had no major mistakes. I scored a 57, but that may have been adjusted afterwards to account for the wet conditions. I ended up qualifying 31st and would be going against JR in top 32 the next day.

For top 32, I knew I couldn’t loosen the car up anymore to make it easier on the bank because I would get left behind on the flat infield. There was no strategy, just go as fast as possible when following to keep proximity and try to do a killer lead run with a lot of angle. After a short practice on Saturday, I lined up with JR to follow first. We left the line at the same time, and he got about a car length gap as we initiated into the first turn. I drove pretty shallow to catch up and was sort of closing in going into the infield, but went into the right turn too fast, and the car washed out with the left rear going up on the bank. I tried to catch up but couldn’t get any closer than about one car length. On my lead run, I just tried to get a lot of angle in the infield and force him into making a mistake. JR was on point and got the win.

After getting the car back from Atlanta, I did the maintenance on it and checked everything over. Luckily, I didn’t find any issues, so I spent the couple of weeks leading up to Florida finishing up minor details. I didn’t change the setup of the car much except for adding some more front camber and taking out a bit of rear toe.

I flew in to West Palm Beach on Wednesday and hung out until Thursday’s practice session. The track configuration was basically the reverse of what was used the previous year. With my car, it was a fourth gear clutch kick entry into a right turn, transition to the left and hit an outside clipping zone, downshift to third, hit an inside clip, then finally a right turn with another inside clip. By far, the main focus of the course was the entry and hitting the outer clipping zone. The track was risky due to the fast entry and lack of run-off room after the outer zone. I drove safe on Thursday and just tried to find some reference points to be able to nail the first turn and outer zone. We left the car alone except for gradually lowering the tire pressures as I got more comfortable with the course.

On Friday, we had one more hour of practice before qualifying. I stepped it up a bit in this session and tested holding the throttle longer in the first turn and getting closer to the outer zone. I would be the first driver to qualify, same as in Atlanta, since I was still last in the standings. My first run was too conservative, which resulted in a score of 52. There was a big separation in scores, much more than Atlanta, but I was pretty sure I wouldn’t get in top 32 with the first run. On the second run, obviously I knew I had to push harder, but I couldn’t afford a spinout. It was a much more aggressive run than the first, and my line was near perfect. I knew it was a good run right after I finished, but I scored even higher than what I expected with a 91. That put me in second place. In top 32, I would be going against Ken Gushi, the 31st place qualifier.

There was a one hour practice session on Friday night for the top 32 drivers. I followed on almost every run to get a feel for people’s speeds and lines, but I kept it safe as it was tough to spot my reference points at times with the track lights on and smoke everywhere. Overall, I felt pretty comfortable with the track and fast enough to stay with the majority of the competition.

On Saturday, we had one more hour of practice, but I only got a few runs due to track delays. After a couple hours of waiting, it was time for my Top 32 battle with Gushi. I led first and did a pretty solid run with no mistakes. My mechanic/spotter, Kareem, texted me on the way back to grid that Ken ran close and clean, so I knew I had to be on him to win or get a one-more-time.

I spoke to Ken before Top 32, and he agreed to pace me to the pace cone and give me a jump on the start to make sure I could keep up with him. I didn’t get to run with him in practice, so I had no idea how our cars compared in terms of acceleration. I left the line on the 5th light on the tree, shifted to third, passed the pace cone, and I still couldn’t see Ken closing in the mirror. I thought I jumped the start too much, so I lifted off the throttle to let him catch up. He still wasn’t closing and I was thinking maybe I should stop and they would restart it since I couldn’t get up to normal initiation speed waiting for him that long. Right at that point, he got on it and blew by me about 3/4 of the way down the straightaway and got a huge lead.

I should have just stopped at that point and hoped for a restart, but I didn’t make the decision in time and ended up doing the run trying to catch him the whole time. I was disappointed because I didn’t even have a chance to try to follow. The run was basically over when he passed me. I’m not trying to blame Ken for it. I may have just jumped the start too much or maybe he didn’t get a good start for some reason, which allowed me to get too far ahead.